Sam: Hey, this is Sam from the future. Just to say, during the show,
Sam: at one point, we briefly in passing mentioned that the Syrian rebels were making
Sam: some progress and taking some ground and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: But we didn't really talk about it at all. It was just sort of literally in
Sam: passing as something we weren't really going to spend time on.
Sam: But since we recorded the show and before I'm putting it out,
Sam: the Syrian government of Assad, of Bashir Assad, fell completely.
Sam: He left the country. The rebels have taken over.
Sam: The prime minister is handing over the reins of power, etc. There were some
Sam: rumors for a little while that Bashir himself may have died in a plane crash,
Sam: but it seems that was false.
Sam: And he has actually made it safely to Russia.
Sam: And there's a lot of question about this HTS group who's taken over.
Sam: And they're the ones that actually took over Damascus, but they're in a coalition
Sam: with a lot of other rebel groups. And it's historically a jihadist group,
Sam: but are they more moderate now?
Sam: They're claiming to be or not, or what will happen next, and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: Both Israel and the U.S. are attacking various things in Syria to try to take
Sam: out weapons stores and other stuff to keep them out of the hands of the rebels that just took over.
Sam: Developments are moving rapidly, in other words. Things are happening,
Sam: and we did not talk about it on the show at all.
Sam: Depending on what else happens in the world over the
Sam: next week we may or may not end up talking about it next week but major development
Sam: that happened in this interim period between recording the show and putting
Sam: it out so i thought i'd just make a note of it anyway here's our show do do do hello okay.
Ivan: I can only be on briefly.
Sam: Okay all.
Ivan: Right so one yeah she's because they like you know they give you this stuff
Ivan: that basically just like numbs down the leg like like crazy but that's wearing off.
Sam: Okay okay uh so i could just join.
Ivan: To i don't know talk for a little bit and.
Sam: Then i'll let you how long do you think briefly is are we talking half an hour i.
Ivan: Don't know if you maybe yeah.
Sam: 15 minutes 10 minutes five i don't know depends.
Ivan: On when i get the call that she's she.
Sam: Needs help okay okay then let's just uh get the sucker going here we go,
Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, December 7th, 2024.
Sam: It's just after 20 UTC as we're starting to record. I'm Sam Menter,
Sam: Yvonne Bowes here. Hello, Yvonne.
Ivan: Hello.
Sam: So, so, so. I mentioned last week.
Ivan: I run a hospital, Sam.
Sam: So tell us about this. I only mentioned last week that you were out due to a
Sam: family health thing and that, you know, your wife had been injured.
Sam: Do you have any more you want to share on that?
Ivan: Well, yeah, she ruptured her Achilles tendon playing basketball with my son
Ivan: last Wednesday. Now, look, my wife is somebody that actually partakes in a lot
Ivan: of athletic activities, including Spartan races.
Ivan: I don't know if you've ever seen a video of those. They're nuts.
Ivan: There are these massive obstacle races where you have to climb ropes and you
Ivan: have to do all sorts of crazy things while you run for miles, for example.
Ivan: Um you know she you know she exercises
Ivan: a lot lifts weights does all this shit so it's not
Ivan: like she's out of shape and doing exercise so she was just doing some
Ivan: light basketball with my son and all of a sudden in some drill her achilles
Ivan: tendon snapped she had to be taken to the er they diagnosed it she can't you
Ivan: couldn't walk doc it's happened a weekend before thanksgiving our Thanksgiving
Ivan: weekend plans were completely ruined.
Ivan: Monday, I got her to the doctor. They confirmed the diagnosis at the ER.
Ivan: Then they had to do an MRI. And the same day that I needed to do a CAT CT scan
Ivan: for my lower intestines because of my episode the last week.
Ivan: So I had an MRI in the morning and then a CT scan in the afternoon.
Ivan: And then the next day, surgery, which is thursday all day for your hospital
Ivan: for my wife yeah because apparently i'm i'm fine and then you know there was
Ivan: a condo election this week that also happened on tuesday that was.
Ivan: Basically my election for the
Ivan: board is a mirror of the 2020 election for president 2020 not 2024 yeah not
Ivan: 2024 2020 yeah in which i did in re-election so.
Sam: So wait if if it's 2020 so then you're the trump character here you're the the
Sam: evil person in charge and somebody's trying to kick you out.
Ivan: No no no i'm well no it's it's 2020 in the sense that i'm i'm i'm like biden And I did win. Okay.
Ivan: But the election has been heavily disputed.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: By the other people. A lot of it because they didn't really understand the law.
Ivan: Even though it's a whole bunch of flurry of actions and things have been filed by this person.
Ivan: But let's be clear about this. This guy who was leading it is an attorney.
Ivan: And then I go and I look at, okay, where is he an attorney at? Okay.
Ivan: I don't know if you clicked on the information I sent about him, Sam.
Sam: No, I just read what you said. I didn't click through.
Ivan: Okay. So you didn't read that he, it's a, it's a law firm that has four lawyers,
Ivan: two, two partners, but the main partner is a guy that has been on the defense team for Rudy Giuliani,
Ivan: uh, Papadopoulos, Carter Page,
Ivan: Kyle Rittenhouse. Okay.
Ivan: And is an attorney that has been the one that represented the, the most J sixers.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: And this guy is his young apprentice. And he came in screaming how I, at this election,
Ivan: I always bring our legal counsel to make sure that the election is run in accordance with the statutes.
Ivan: Okay. And this guy kept screaming how that's not the law.
Ivan: And my attorney kept having to say, you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
Sam: Lovely.
Ivan: And has continued to file a series of actions and things and challenges,
Ivan: all which are basically have fallen flat because he doesn't know the law or
Ivan: he's choosing to ignore the law.
Ivan: I'm actually on the side that he doesn't really know the law because he's barely
Ivan: passed the bar a couple of months ago.
Ivan: This guy is a 23-year-old, 24-year-old guy as far as I can tell,
Ivan: 26, 27, something in the 20s.
Ivan: But one thing about being a lawyer and you having passed the bar a couple of
Ivan: months ago is that if you're that young a lawyer and haven't really practiced,
Ivan: you don't really know the law yet, okay?
Ivan: It really takes a lot of work for you to get. And there are a lot of specialties, okay?
Ivan: You know, a lawyer that is a criminal attorney doesn't know condominium law,
Ivan: okay? Or tax law, for example.
Ivan: They're not the same, you know, the same things.
Ivan: And so anyway, uh, uh,
Ivan: he actually last night, well, wait, wait, wait, but it gets better because last
Ivan: night after a surgery or whatever,
Ivan: after our property manager in violation of privacy laws, for some reason thought
Ivan: it was okay to share the email addresses of all the owners of the association without their consent,
Ivan: which by the way, needs to be done,
Ivan: sent out a solicitation to have me recalled from office.
Sam: Mm-hmm.
Ivan: And so, I mean, I'm like this guy, you know, I don't know that I,
Ivan: it's just all these people that are in this circle.
Ivan: They think that just screaming and yelling and saying, you don't know the law.
Ivan: When I'm like, no, the guy that doesn't know the law is you. I don't know.
Ivan: They keep citing incorrect law. And they were driving me crazy.
Sam: So let me ask a fundamental question. and then we can move on because like nobody
Sam: cares about the details of your condo association to be frank but no like is
Sam: there actually a contentious issue here like why does anybody care.
Ivan: Like is there something they hate i'll tell you well here that you're doing that they don't like,
Ivan: listen as far as i can tell the only issue
Ivan: has been that there was a construction project that did that got very delayed
Ivan: okay you know because as construction projects
Ivan: do and they were irate about the delays in the construction that that's
Ivan: it i there's nothing else really and and a few people have repeated that to
Ivan: me and it's just that you know you do construction projects and contractors
Ivan: being contractors and you know it it wind up it wound up making it that the
Ivan: construction the pool wound up closed supposed to be closed for four months
Ivan: it wound up being closed for,
Ivan: 14 months okay that's and i
Ivan: understand it's a bit longer and i understand their their of frustration,
Ivan: but, you know, look at some point at month five, as they were going along and
Ivan: the pools moving along, all of a sudden all the workers walked off the site
Ivan: and I'm like, well, what the hell happened?
Ivan: And then they told me, well, we're subs and the contractor stopped paying us.
Ivan: And I'm like, well, we paid the contractor already. So, so, you know,
Ivan: it's like the contractor is not paying them.
Ivan: And so this began a multi-month delay in the construction because the,
Ivan: the, the, because of that.
Ivan: And then, and then they hadn't filed for the permits and then there were permitting issues.
Ivan: And then when they finished this, the, the, the city inspectors came and said
Ivan: that a lot of the work had been done was not up to code.
Ivan: So it was just uh okay uh you
Ivan: know but but unfortunately i've been in a lot
Ivan: of construction projects to anybody out there construction projects are never
Ivan: on time i mean if that well maybe not never but it's a rarity for any construction
Ivan: project to be completed on time okay anybody seen any construction projects
Ivan: like large like public works projects like Like, you know, highway,
Ivan: you know, already remembers like the Boston, like the big dig,
Ivan: like whatever that that thing was supposed to be a few years took 20,
Ivan: 30 years to complete for God's sakes.
Ivan: You know, but, but listen, at any scale, these construction projects are always,
Ivan: always, always, always delayed.
Ivan: And so I get that, but there was another issue, which goes back to a little
Ivan: bit to 2020, some election issues, which is that, okay, every year we mail the ballots. Okay.
Ivan: I'm supposed to send them back. I don't know what the hell the problem has been
Ivan: with the mail or the provider or what the, where the, I don't know where the glitch is.
Sam: Some people didn't get their ballots.
Ivan: That's right. The ballots were massively delayed. Okay. I don't know why.
Ivan: I really, at this point, don't know why.
Ivan: And some people are saying that we did it on purpose and I'm like,
Ivan: shit, use the same vendor we've used.
Ivan: I don't know why the ballots didn't get there on time.
Ivan: But the thing is that the statute basically says as long as the ballots were
Ivan: sent, as long as the statute is that we need to send the ballots on a certain
Ivan: date and we have completed the law.
Ivan: Receiving the ballots, we need to receive them on the day of the election.
Ivan: If they're not received, we can't count. Okay. No ballot can be received after
Ivan: the, we start opening envelopes from the ballots.
Ivan: That's it. No more ballots can be received.
Ivan: And so it's one of those, it's one of those where, you know,
Ivan: this, this issue with the mail, you know, we talked about mail voting and how that's an issue.
Ivan: It really impacted us as well. I mean, it's a process that we've done for many years.
Ivan: And then all of a sudden, you know, we sending first class mail and it takes
Ivan: all of a sudden two weeks for people to get it.
Ivan: The statute says two weeks, you need to send them out two weeks in advance.
Ivan: So one of the things that's discussing with attorney, it was like,
Ivan: look, you send them on time.
Ivan: You can't do anything about it. I mean, I was like thinking,
Ivan: that to postpone the vote somehow,
Ivan: but they told me that we couldn't do that because he had to be done during the
Ivan: calendar year and i'm like well so a lot of people are irate about that but
Ivan: unfortunately it wasn't i don't know it wasn't intentional so anyway it created a lot of them.
Ivan: I got a lot of angry calls emails things
Ivan: i i got i actually got both sides i
Ivan: got positive ones i got negative ones you know
Ivan: part of the whole thing is i don't know just a
Ivan: lot of false accusations about shit also oh
Ivan: my god so many false accusations i i have not i i have i've not been insulted
Ivan: and yelled at like this in a long time which is the i i'm gonna say that's the
Ivan: one thing that's just i've got my wife in surgery i got all this stuff or whatever
Ivan: i'm gonna uh whatever and i'm basically just being hammered with insults not
Ivan: not exactly great what's.
Sam: The right way to ask this question why do you care enough to not just say okay fuck it i'm out.
Ivan: Uh because i'll tell you immediately.
Sam: For me i'd be like none of that's worth the hassle screw it i don't care.
Ivan: Somebody else can do it you know because i've lived here for a long time and
Ivan: i know that a lot of people that are owners for a long time would probably be harmed,
Ivan: by a number a group of inexperienced people taking the the the board you know
Ivan: and i and And I also worry about the employees of the association, you know,
Ivan: to having somebody that is in every communication I've had with them, be belligerent,
Ivan: be a people manager.
Ivan: I've got some employees here that have worked like 15, 20 years,
Ivan: and I honestly don't want them to be.
Ivan: Supervised by somebody that, that is going to treat them poorly.
Ivan: Um, you know, and I do worry about the other, you know, because it impacts the community as well.
Ivan: Other owners are going to get impacted because they don't, a lot of the things
Ivan: that they have discussed and proposed, one of the biggest concerns is keeping costs in check.
Ivan: And they're, they're not, they don't understand that A lot of the financial
Ivan: things that they have talked about are just going to backfire financially.
Ivan: And so, you know, it's one of those things where, well, wind up hitting my pocketbook as well.
Ivan: So I, it's, it's tough. I honestly,
Ivan: listen, believe me, I had given thought to that, but, but the thing is that
Ivan: when the people are using lies,
Ivan: intimidation, it, listen, it's, it's the, it's this lies an intimidation tactic
Ivan: to try to get people to just bend to their will and i i'm just not very i i
Ivan: don't want to just do that.
Sam: And just to be.
Ivan: Clear like.
Sam: You said they have a lot of complaints about like a delayed construction project
Sam: from the past what would what are they saying they do differently going forward does.
Ivan: Nothing they haven't said that another thing okay okay uh i mean they said that
Ivan: well well the thing is that they keep saying that nobody listens to their suggestions
Ivan: I had somebody that went and listed suggestions that they said that we didn't listen to.
Ivan: And I actually said, you know what? All those things that you said are either
Ivan: already done or in process of being done.
Ivan: So I don't know what the hell you're saying, that we're not listening to your
Ivan: suggestions. What do we actually do?
Ivan: Either did them or we're in the process of doing them. So I don't,
Ivan: I, I'm, I, I, I'm baffled because I don't, when you look at what they're asking
Ivan: for, they're not really asking for, for anything.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: It's to make America, it's to make a, make America great again.
Sam: Okay. Okay. So I, I didn't mention agenda.
Sam: Agenda is as usual. We're doing this, but first segment. And then if Yvonne
Sam: is able to stay, we'll see how long Yvonne can stay because he might have to go attend to his wife.
Sam: We will do more serious stuff after that.
Sam: So first of all, for my but first, I'm just going to update my one from last week.
Sam: My second attempt at buying the stupid microphone, I actually got a proper new one that was.
Ivan: Oh, yeah. Look at that.
Sam: Clearly, like when it came out of the box, it was pristine. It was wrapped properly.
Sam: All the seals were sealed.
Sam: And like when I took it out, it was undamaged.
Ivan: The seals being sealed are important.
Sam: You know, I don't know if you listened to last week's show. Like the first one
Sam: I ordered, I ordered a new one, but it was clearly used and damaged when it arrived. And so.
Ivan: Where did you buy it from?
Sam: My employer. But it was one of their.
Sam: Third parties anyway i complained about this a lot last episode listen to that
Sam: if you care but anyway i have i have a proper this this one is actually new
Sam: and good and happy so well,
Sam: yeah and so that that's my update i did i did set it up it's it's it's good
Sam: yeah so i i have nothing else to say about that i figured uh since you uh might
Sam: have to go early we can uh take a break and jump right into the serious stuff. Okay.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: So here we go.
Sam: Okay we are back so yvonne there was actually like you know a few newsy things that happened this.
Ivan: Last week uh where would you where would you like the one i'm gonna i'm gonna
Ivan: tell you the one that i want to start with i.
Sam: I have a guess let me see if i'm right.
Ivan: It's the the united healthcare i was right i.
Sam: Was right i knew where yvonne was wanting to go go ahead.
Ivan: I mean look it
Ivan: it well first of all i mean i
Ivan: don't i don't recall the last time
Ivan: a ceo of a company was arrested i mean it was was
Ivan: murdered um difference between those two
Ivan: things but yes yeah very very much of murdered
Ivan: i don't man i i'm i'm scratching my head i
Ivan: don't i don't really remember that this is a thing in recent times but the one
Ivan: thing that that that came out is this on social media in in in in for the most
Ivan: part okay zero empathy before.
Sam: You get to that like just the fundamental facts ceo of.
Ivan: Look he was he was got there was an investor there was a uhc
Ivan: there are these investor meetings that are held regularly
Ivan: in order to met for big investors to
Ivan: go and and the company will make presentations about strategy financials
Ivan: what they're doing what's going on and so forth and so on and a lot i mean a
Ivan: lot of them all are held in new york city obviously you know for because many
Ivan: many many of the invest you know like for example hedge funds and other companies
Ivan: that hold like large holdings of the stocks that they're there so you know you'll
Ivan: you'll hold them there and And early in the morning,
Ivan: he was heading to the hotel where the meeting was held.
Ivan: He was walking towards the property, and somebody came up and shot him.
Ivan: And shot him with what appeared to be a gun that was either produced or a little
Ivan: sound or was silenced, okay, in some way.
Ivan: And the person very quickly, the one thing that I was reading is that because
Ivan: of the way that he did the shooting, it took people a while to realize that somebody had shot.
Ivan: So it gave this guy plenty of time to just, you know, take off and,
Ivan: you know, until people realize that this guy was murdered and,
Ivan: and, you know, that we needed to investigate what the hell happened.
Ivan: And one thing that they found is that the shell casings had three words written on.
Ivan: I believe it came from a discovery motion on some lawsuit related to denied
Ivan: insurance claims, okay?
Ivan: And it said that somebody, what they said was that the strategy that they had,
Ivan: that they need to follow to deny that is deny, defend, oppose.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: So, you know, you deny the claim, you defend the claim, and then, you know,
Ivan: if they want whatever, you start this deposition process of all those involved, you know.
Ivan: And so that's what, and that's a strategy.
Ivan: And I, and I will tell you like right now that I, I mean,
Ivan: this part of being deposed by insurance companies, I went through a lot of that
Ivan: where I had a medical insurance company that put me through a series of depositions related to lawsuit.
Ivan: And they were like, they were, I actually, at one point at the attorney,
Ivan: it just told them, I'm like, you're just doing this to fuck with me and to bill hours. Right.
Ivan: I mean, you know, you're just running up the fucking bill at this point.
Ivan: Hey, you just want to fucking, you just want to fuck with me.
Ivan: And so I get the antagonism that dealing with insurance companies,
Ivan: which I have fought with medical insurance companies for close to 30 years. So Jesus Christ. Yeah.
Ivan: Related to our business, related to my, my, my son's health,
Ivan: more specifically, more than anything, how I have had to repeatedly appeal.
Ivan: Fight, you know, all these things in order to get my son's treatments covered.
Ivan: I will say that for the most part, I prevailed in almost all of, all of them.
Ivan: But the one thing that I, that I, what I, what I was telling people is that,
Ivan: that to always be careful because they, they are, I mean, what I said,
Ivan: and I, and I was, some of the people ask me what the strategy is to deal with this kind of stuff.
Ivan: And I said, look, number one is that they will like the whole deny thing.
Ivan: But man, when in doubt, they'll just deny it.
Ivan: And what happens is that 98, 99% of people won't appeal.
Ivan: So I'll get a denial and they won't fight it. And so that's part of the business model.
Ivan: Unfortunately, the insurance companies are counting that most people just will not appeal.
Ivan: And, but I, anytime anything got delayed, the opposite, I would appeal,
Ivan: I appealed every single time.
Ivan: And 90, I'm going to say, well north of 90% of the time, I wound up getting
Ivan: whatever the hell it was denied cover. Okay?
Ivan: And so I understand that. And I would say that I personally, I mean,
Ivan: if you look at my track record and all the shit I've had to deal with the insurance
Ivan: companies, you would think that I would have extreme animosity towards a CEO
Ivan: of one of these healthcare companies.
Ivan: But the reality is, I also know that part of this and why the insurance company
Ivan: is because the entire medical system in the US is structured this way.
Ivan: And it's a fucked up system, okay? in which he's also, in certain ways,
Ivan: you want to say it or not, a cog of this fucking system.
Ivan: And I don't see how assassinating a CEO of a fucking insurance company is a
Ivan: proper response to getting health benefits denied.
Ivan: You know, I mean, there are so many, we say, well.
Ivan: You know, so many people that out of pocket and they died or whatever,
Ivan: But I also know a lot of people that without their damn insurance that they,
Ivan: you know, how much of their care has taken care of them in, like,
Ivan: very difficult situations.
Ivan: But the problem is the system itself and the fact that, I mean,
Ivan: President Obama did a lot of reforms to it to make it better than it was.
Ivan: Obviously not as far reaching as they wanted but it it's it's one of those things where,
Ivan: it obviously i don't see how we make any further changes anytime soon given
Ivan: the political climate yep the
Ivan: only changes that the gop has proposed would actually make it a lot worse,
Ivan: so so this creates this animosity which i i understand the animosity but So
Ivan: you were starting to talk. Take your fucking legislators.
Sam: You were starting to talk about. Take your fucking legislators.
Sam: When I interrupted and said, give the background, you were starting to talk
Sam: about the social media response.
Ivan: No, the social media response I found is just appalling. It's just the complete. I mean, just.
Sam: Just to be clear, there are lots of people saying, yay, this is what should
Sam: be happening. He deserved it.
Ivan: Let's murder more CEOs.
Sam: Mm-hmm.
Ivan: And I'm just like, I mean, this is not a, this is, this is not a good escalation
Ivan: on how to resolve the issues that we have as a society.
Ivan: I will say that, but, but we've had, listen, but we've had eras of,
Ivan: in the past, of a lot more assassinations.
Ivan: And I, you know, look.
Sam: And political violence in general. And political violence in general.
Sam: We've talked about before how, you know, people always point to the 1960s,
Sam: of course, where we had several high profile assassinations.
Sam: We had all kinds of other lower level violence in the background all the time
Sam: here in the U.S. And of course, other countries each have their own histories.
Sam: But, you know, I and I've said before on this show, not that I'm in any way
Sam: advocating for the violence, just to be absolutely clear, but I have actually
Sam: been surprised we have not seen more.
Sam: And it's not that we've seen zero.
Sam: There have been a number of high-profile incidents. Of course,
Sam: you had the couple of attempts on Donald Trump over the last few months.
Sam: You had, going back further, you had Gabby Giffords, and you had the congressional
Sam: softball game or whatever it was. You've had a variety of those.
Sam: I've just honestly been surprised there hasn't been... Oh, and Nancy Pelosi's
Sam: husband. You know, I've just been surprised there hasn't been more and that
Sam: more haven't been successful for the most part.
Sam: And to be clear, again, like I'm not saying it would be a good thing if there were more.
Sam: It's just given the overall state of...
Sam: More animosity in the country right now. It's surprising there's not more.
Sam: And it's interesting in this case.
Ivan: Like most of the people.
Sam: It has been escalating. One of the things I wanted to say is most of the people
Sam: I just mentioned, like I spit out a whole bunch of politicians,
Sam: this is a little bit different. It's a corporate CEO, but there's lots of anger there too.
Sam: Like, you know, if I look at social media, even before this,
Sam: there's a whole bunch of sort of eat the rich, billionaires don't deserve to exist kind of,
Sam: talk and you know this is just sort of the next
Sam: sort of level of that i guess i
Sam: mean and you may have you may have someone here who
Sam: is specifically aggrieved right you know
Sam: right you know we'll i don't know well it what
Sam: we'll end up finding out in terms of like was the killer directly
Sam: affected or was he hired by somebody he who was or whatever who knows but like
Sam: you know it may well be a situation where somebody had a specific case that
Sam: was denied that resulted in about bad outcome for a family member or something
Sam: and this is them taking revenge you know yeah.
Ivan: I mean i can see i mean there was a movie about this like a long time ago like
Ivan: i remember the ceo there's one called desperate measures where there was like
Ivan: i think it was a michael keaton who their child got denied certain life-saving
Ivan: care and he took hostages or.
Sam: Something or.
Ivan: Whatever in order to force the insurance company to go and like give the life-saving
Ivan: care to their to their child i mean it's not like people haven't like this hasn't
Ivan: been a controversial thing in the past i mean i have to assume that there you
Ivan: know because there has to be some direct,
Ivan: relationship between some kind of medical denial and, you know,
Ivan: what, what, what's that, that, this, this, you know, this murder,
Ivan: I don't see how else that it given, you know, the evidence has been found and
Ivan: how it happened and how targeted it was.
Ivan: It has to be, there's just no other, no other explanation.
Sam: You know, there, there has to be something, right. But we don't, we don't know yet.
Sam: The other things are that people have been talking about a lot are how quote
Sam: unquote professional this was like in terms of the person who do it.
Sam: The person who did this seemed like they knew what they were doing.
Sam: They had an escape route planned out.
Sam: They had sort of meticulously planned things. It looks like they messed up one
Sam: or two things, but like, you know.
Ivan: For the most part, they, they, I mean, they can't find them yet.
Ivan: They can't find them or identify them.
Sam: Right. Although every day we've had a few more clues dropped that,
Sam: you know, so they're on the trail.
Sam: Like now they're on the trail. Now there are a lot of people who are like,
Sam: ah, they'll never find him. But, you know, these folks are good.
Sam: These folks are the folks who dig into this kind of situation are good.
Ivan: You know, yeah.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: So there's a lot to go on.
Sam: Yeah. My expectation right now is still that they're going to find this guy.
Sam: But, you know, you're right. There could be a direct thing.
Sam: But hell, for all we know, this is motivated some completely different way.
Sam: And, you know, this was a kill for hire on some unrelated thing.
Sam: And part of the professionalism here was putting in clues to lead people the
Sam: wrong direction. Who knows?
Sam: I mean, it's probably the more straightforward case. I mean,
Sam: the most straightforward case here is that someone got screwed by the insurance
Sam: company who happened to have a set of skills along these lines already, and they were just like,
Sam: I'm going to do it. I'm going to take my revenge. I have the skills.
Sam: I know how to do this. I'm going to do this.
Sam: That's the most straightforward explanation and the most likely,
Sam: but we can't rule out other more esoteric things at this point. We just don't know yet.
Sam: Um but going back to the reaction though
Sam: like you know what one of
Sam: the yeah it ha it almost has to be like a direct revenge kind of thing right
Sam: for something because like if you're after like oh i want the insurance company
Sam: policies to change this is not going to do that you know well i.
Ivan: Will say that look i'm not gonna totally say that.
Sam: Okay their.
Ivan: Reaction by some in the health they they they they are a little bit.
Sam: Chastened by this oh.
Ivan: Yeah listen i i mean number one thing is i heard well ceo calls for uh executive
Ivan: protection i mean almost every damn ceo now is demanding some kind of.
Sam: Fucking additional security that they didn't have. That's what I was actually going to say.
Sam: Like the changes that come out of this are the CEOs are going to have more security.
Sam: It's not going to be the insurance company decides to be the general.
Ivan: No, but I also heard some stuff related to... I got to tell you what.
Sam: I mean, we had that other company...
Ivan: Because a lot of these decisions...
Sam: We had that other company back off on that anesthesia thing,
Sam: and people were trying to imply that was related. I really doubt that it was, but...
Ivan: Listen, a lot of decisions...
Ivan: For denial are, are, are not, how do I say?
Ivan: They're not, they're not clear or cut. They could go either way. Exactly.
Sam: And so, and so right now the thumb is on the scale, like you say, default to deny.
Sam: Like you, you could change your guidelines to people to just be a little bit
Sam: more generous and ambiguous cases, you know?
Ivan: Right.
Sam: There, there's a potential bottom.
Ivan: Line and there's a human factor but but the thing is
Ivan: it's not even change it's not changing the policy it's the humans
Ivan: involved and their fear for well this was an iffy one and maybe that before
Ivan: they were just like oh fuck it deny it and now they're like all right i don't
Ivan: want to hear any i don't want some guy to come in with a gun in here whatever
Ivan: okay fine fine fine let him in let let him get a shit because there these are
Ivan: humans behind a fucking decision right.
Sam: Well and And this is the case too, like in this particular case, they went after the CEO.
Sam: You could see an alternate history where they go after the case manager.
Ivan: Fuck. Yeah. Oh, hell yeah. Hell yeah.
Ivan: Hell yeah. I mean, that kind of shit has happened in other businesses and things. Sure.
Sam: Or for that matter, somebody just goes into the nearest office and gets whoever's there.
Ivan: It starts right. Starts just what? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Sam: You know, so that, and you know, this all, I don't know. It's.
Sam: It's hard to tell with these kinds of, you know, do we have a trend or not,
Sam: like you said, when they're small numbers to begin with.
Sam: I mean, like we can look at the overall murder rate or something and see trends reliably.
Sam: But if you're talking about like, you know, how many company executives are
Sam: getting murdered, you know, well, what do you count?
Sam: Like, are we only counting CEOs? Are we counting the whole C-suite?
Sam: Are we talking just like, you know, anybody who's a high level manager and which
Sam: companies count? Are we talking about only Fortune 500?
Sam: Are we talking about like, like when you, when you were mentioning,
Sam: I can't remember the last time a CEO was killed. I was trying to Google it.
Sam: And like, I found some tech CEO in Baltimore that was killed in 2023.
Sam: And apparently, oh, but that was apparently unrelated to her job.
Ivan: Right, right, right.
Sam: Et cetera. I found another list of like, you know, 10 CEOs that have been killed
Sam: or whatever that was from, from way back in 2011. And I didn't recognize any of the names.
Sam: So they were, and a lot of them were non-US foreign all over the world, you know?
Sam: And so I'm like, I don't know.
Sam: How, how do you even measure that? And it, and because you're dealing with such
Sam: a small group of people like if there's zero one year and one the next year
Sam: you've had an infinite increase that's that.
Ivan: Is that is totally an infinite increase absolutely yes.
Sam: You know so but at the same time
Sam: i think the general you can sort of get a feel of like and it definitely seems
Sam: like i mean how going back to the the the donald trump stuff i mean we had two
Sam: high profile attempts Trump's on Donald Trump in the space of a couple months.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know, that's, that's something. Um, yeah.
Sam: And you know, they failed. We'd be in an entirely different universe if they
Sam: hadn't failed. Just saying, but,
Sam: The, I don't know. I mean, on the one hand.
Ivan: I just think that this shows an uptick in this kind of shit.
Sam: I mean. I could see that. Well, and just forget the specific like murders and
Sam: attempted murders for a second.
Sam: Just the temperature of conversation and the level of polarization has been
Sam: on the upswing for the last decade.
Sam: Now, I'd argue we're still nowhere near where we were in the 60s,
Sam: or the Civil War, for that matter, going back even further.
Sam: But it's still on an upswing, I think. And I don't think it's crested.
Sam: Maybe. I mean, the one thing I could see that was like,
Sam: that is a sign to me that maybe it's crested is that the response to Donald
Sam: Trump winning for the most part has not been, oh my God,
Sam: let's, let's gird up for a major battle and we have to fight the forces of evil
Sam: and all this kind of stuff.
Sam: And it's just sort of like, we're tired.
Ivan: Okay. My, my, my reaction has been to bury my head in the sand.
Sam: Exactly. Exactly.
Ivan: Like, I mean, I, I, I have been, I have done a remarkably good job at burying
Ivan: my head in the sand, but it's not, I right now watch no TV news.
Ivan: I have my feed now filtered on threads where I can only get,
Ivan: get stuff like stuff on formula one and
Ivan: like the nba or you know
Ivan: just innocuous shit like that i i turned off
Ivan: so many of my you know no news notifications i'm not i i'm not gonna lie i still
Ivan: do catch some of what's going on and i probably catch eventually most of what's
Ivan: going on right but it's not the urgent alert i'm just like later on i'm like
Ivan: you'll you'll see it in a daily update.
Sam: Once ever yeah you'll you'll.
Ivan: You're fine if you see it the next morning exactly i'm
Ivan: like oh look what's his name they might
Ivan: name the santas as secretary of defense oh that's
Ivan: that's interesting you know or you
Ivan: know whatever i'm just i i don't
Ivan: i i listen in between let's see
Ivan: in between me being in the hospital in between my wife being in the hospital
Ivan: in between my job in between my fucking condo board okay and add this goddamn
Ivan: fucking you know trump presidency i'm just like you know what listen i need to,
Ivan: I need to simplify here. And I gotta be honest, the stress of a lot of this
Ivan: stuff in part played into why the hell I wound up in the fucking hospital in October.
Ivan: Let's not kid ourselves. Okay. That had to do, you know, because I'm in so many
Ivan: fucking things at the same time, you know, that, that, yeah, this did not help.
Ivan: No, no. no so yeah i gotta like i mean i gotta i gotta i need to filter some
Ivan: of this shit right now i just can't deal you know.
Sam: Well and and i think like i was saying i think the reaction has been such like
Sam: there were there was worries like you know oh okay if harris had won how would
Sam: the trump people react now honestly i think that was overblown too i think for
Sam: the most part the Trump people were also like,
Sam: we're tired, you know,
Sam: like the enthusiasm levels that we saw, like in the Trump rallies at towards the end were low.
Sam: I think if they had lost, we would not have seen like, oh my God,
Sam: the MAGA militias, or we would not have seen even a repeat of January 6th from four years ago.
Sam: Right. I think they would have been like, okay, that's it.
Sam: And same thing, what we're seeing from the left who are sort of just resigned
Sam: and accepting of what's happening.
Sam: And, you know, you know, and I think, you know, you never know how things are
Sam: actually going to turn out once he's actually in office and things are happening.
Sam: But I feel like the, I don't know, maybe it's just a lull and the tensions will
Sam: increase again, starting in January.
Sam: But I'm hopeful that this is sort of a we've had the climax of this sort of
Sam: tension and we can start calming down again I don't know a lot's going to depend
Sam: on what Trump does or does not do I don't.
Ivan: Know who knows.
Sam: You don't let like right now on the other hand let's go ahead and have the damn
Sam: civil war and have the blue states secede from the red states and have two countries
Sam: and maybe we'd all be happier.
Sam: After a civil war no you
Sam: you know like it could be a respectful divorce
Sam: you know it doesn't have to be i mean that's
Sam: okay you could you would end up on the red side there in florida but you know
Sam: oh well no of course what people say is like yeah there's there's a lot of people
Sam: who would be screwed by such a transition uh so that's not necessarily a good
Sam: outcome either but it's something, you know, the, the.
Sam: I don't know. I feel like we'll see.
Sam: I'm still, I'm crossing my fingers that we have, everything sort of calms down.
Sam: And as opposed to this, these assassinations and assassination attempts over
Sam: the last few months are the precursor to worse.
Sam: I'm hoping it's not the precursor to worse. And instead we calm down,
Sam: you know, and I don't know.
Sam: And I'm hoping like, you know, like I said, on election night,
Sam: I think like our best hopes are that, you know, Trump doesn't do most of the
Sam: shit he says he's going to do as usual.
Sam: Like he, he may want to do stuff, but he doesn't succeed.
Sam: And, and so like, you know, things aren't as bad as they could be.
Sam: And then we move on. And then, you know, in four years we have president Vance
Sam: or something and, you know, and then we move on, you know?
Sam: So i don't know anything else on the this yvonne or anything else that you want
Sam: to bring up before we take a break and i do whatever i'm gonna do no.
Ivan: No let's go to i don't know something.
Sam: Something something yeah okay here is our second break.
Sam: Okay here i am so look i'm just looking over this list i i've already known
Sam: what i'm going to pick but here's some of the things i'm i'm not going to pick
Sam: that we still haven't talked about we we never talked in depth depth about gates
Sam: dropping out we didn't talk about how the trump team is,
Sam: is skipping a lot of that yeah i forgot about it's ancient history at this point
Sam: how trump is skipping a lot of background checks and stuff he finally signed
Sam: some of the documents i guess some Maybe I'm in a bubble, blah, blah.
Sam: We haven't talked. There was a tied to our last topic.
Sam: There was a wave of swatting both of Trump team members and of Democrats over the last few weeks.
Sam: And then more recently, there's been a major rebel offensive in Syria.
Sam: There was this thing in South Korea with attempted martial law that didn't last. Oh, God.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: We had the government in France lost a vote of no confidence.
Sam: Oh, and also in France, we had the reopening of Notre Dame after the fire a few years ago.
Sam: We have the issues with the other Trump nominee for defense secretary,
Sam: Hegseth, has some issues. There's more on Blue Sky.
Sam: There's a legal thing on TikTok. Let's see.
Ivan: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, because I can't forget the Hegseth comment.
Sam: Okay. Okay, and then I'll get to the topic.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah. The Hexed comment I understood is, what did I say?
Ivan: Oh, if you let me be sect-deft, I'll quit drinking. I swear.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: I am.
Sam: This is because the more time elapses since Trump announced him as his choice,
Sam: The more we found out about his history, he has two issues.
Sam: One is sexual harassment and assault and things like that.
Ivan: That's actually a job requirement for the Trump administration.
Ivan: What are you talking about?
Sam: Practically and then second is apparently like serious drinking issues like drinking that.
Ivan: Trump doesn't like.
Sam: Now he does not like that but he does not like that we were talking about drinking
Sam: on the job at fox we were talking about going out to to events and getting blacked
Sam: out drunk so much that his friends had to like,
Sam: carry him home and stuff like that on a regular basis, not like,
Sam: oh, there were one or two incidents, but this happened frequently enough that it was talked about.
Sam: And, and yeah, up to and including, like I said, that being,
Sam: being drunk at work too, like, you know, showing up for his Fox morning show,
Sam: clearly in talks, drunk off his ass.
Ivan: Oh, nice.
Sam: You know, and so all that's been coming up. So that's why the promise,
Sam: but, you know, clearly from the description.
Sam: Like it's hard to like diagnose from afar, but he sounds like he's got an actual
Sam: issue. He's got a problem.
Sam: It's not like just, oh, he overindulged a couple of times, you know,
Sam: and, and if he's actually like flat out alcoholic, blah, blah, blah,
Sam: you know, ask anybody who has successfully gone from that state to being sober. It's hard.
Sam: It's not just like you decide one day, you know, oh, you're done.
Sam: I mean, some people do go, go cold Turkey like that, but even the people who
Sam: do have said it's really difficult.
Sam: It's not just, it is very difficult. Not, not a big deal. Like, I, I.
Ivan: Especially moving into a very high stress job. Um, you know,
Ivan: which that would be, you know, that definitely is. I mean, come on, give me a fucking break.
Ivan: Being a fucking talking head on Fox has, you know, what, like 0.05% of the stress
Ivan: that you have as a fucking secretary of defense of the United States. Give me a fucking break.
Ivan: I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't understand, you know, why,
Ivan: you know, we're putting on a clown.
Ivan: Well, I understand Trump. What am I, what am I saying? What am I,
Ivan: what am I doing? What am I saying?
Sam: It makes perfect sense, Yvonne. It matches exactly what you would expect.
Ivan: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I forgot what the fuck I'm talking about.
Ivan: The hell am I saying? The hell am I saying?
Sam: You know, this is another one, though, where it seems like he doesn't have the votes at the moment.
Sam: And by the way, the other thing, since we're talking about this topic for a
Sam: few minutes, all of this talk about Trump forcing Congress to go into a recess
Sam: and doing recess appointments for everybody, nobody's talking about it anymore.
Sam: Congress came – apparently, you would need – at the very least,
Sam: you would need the Speaker of the House on board and to force the situation
Sam: and activate this provision where the president can force the Congress into –,
Sam: Not remission. That's the wrong word.
Ivan: Remission? Remission?
Sam: Yeah, that's the wrong word.
Ivan: Not recess.
Sam: Recess. Recess. Recess.
Ivan: Not a recession.
Sam: Not a recession. It can force them into recess if there's a disagreement between
Sam: the two houses, whatever.
Sam: But apparently, basically, the Senate and I guess the House,
Sam: too, basically said, we're not doing that.
Sam: We're not doing that. We are not going to just go into recess and let you put
Sam: whoever you want without saying.
Ivan: Listen, I am pretty positive that part of this is a future political calculus,
Ivan: not a short-term calculus.
Ivan: Because look, let's be clear about this.
Ivan: A lot of these people, like a Mike Johnson or these guys, are pretty young, right?
Ivan: So if you put in a secretary of defense who is a liquored up lunatic, okay? All right.
Ivan: It's the, the, the, you know, like we've said, Trump might die before the end
Ivan: of this damn term, for God's sakes, you're going to have to be living with,
Ivan: with the, with the shit left behind by this crap.
Ivan: And so I think that they're thinking further ahead right now as well.
Ivan: We only got four more years of this guy. If, if he makes it that long,
Ivan: you know, we can't just, you know, rubber stamp, you know, people like,
Ivan: like, like this, you know?
Sam: Well, and basically I think the whole exercise and some of these picks specifically
Sam: were Donald Trump flexing to see just how much power.
Ivan: How far. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Sam: And I think, and I think he found out he has limits.
Sam: You know, we were honestly worried that the Senate would just completely roll over on everything.
Sam: It looks like, no, they're, I mean, where's the line?
Ivan: The new leader of the Senate. The new leader of the Senate.
Sam: You know, but.
Ivan: Yeah. Well, I mean, the line is with Gates.
Sam: And maybe.
Ivan: I don't know. I don't know if.
Sam: I don't know.
Ivan: Does RFK Jr. have the votes to get nominated?
Sam: Look, the ones that are in trouble right now. I think Hegseth is in trouble.
Sam: I think Tulsi Gabbard is in trouble. And I think RFK Jr.
Sam: Is in trouble. Now, if all four of those get blocked by the Senate,
Sam: that, you know, Trump keeps saying, oh, there's no significant blow.
Sam: This is fine. Blah, blah, blah. If he loses all four of those,
Sam: that, yeah, that's a significant, like, sorry, Trump, you ain't getting these,
Sam: you know, and this, this defines where the line of acceptability is,
Sam: even for a Senate that is a lot Trumpier than it was before.
Ivan: Oh, hell yeah. Yeah.
Sam: Like, even in the last time the Republicans had the Senate. I mean, people- Well.
Ivan: The leader of the Senate that they chose is not really an ultra-magnet.
Ivan: It's not the Trumpy choice.
Sam: You know, Trump wanted somebody else.
Ivan: Trump wanted Rick Scott.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: And the problem is with Rick Scott that I
Ivan: keep finding out is that everybody keeps all of
Ivan: sudden finding out is that everybody really hates rick scott i
Ivan: don't understand how the hell the only reason he's getting
Ivan: he wins is one in florida is because right now for whatever reason people are
Ivan: voting just for the r guy but if you went on a popularity survey of republicans
Ivan: republicans say fuck this guy we hate him so it's another one that is like on
Ivan: the ted cruz kind of side of Republicans where, yeah,
Ivan: he's, we're a hold our nose. He's our guy, but fuck him.
Sam: Right. Right. Yeah. So I think it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. It'll be interesting.
Sam: And the other thing, just to be clear, like that's interesting here is Trump is,
Sam: is explicitly not putting all of his political weight behind these people.
Sam: Like, he made a couple calls for Gates, but he didn't, like, put his foot down.
Sam: You know, he told Haggath, Haggiseth, Haggiseth, Haggiseth, whatever, Haggiseth.
Ivan: Who cares? Fuck him. Whatever.
Sam: Anyway, he told him that, you know, he's not making calls for him.
Sam: He's, you know, he can do whatever he wants. Once you can get the senators on
Sam: board, but he's not like, if he really wanted to, Trump could be strong arming all these senators.
Sam: Trump could be all about like, Hey, I'm going to go against you full,
Sam: full tilt. If you don't do this, he's not doing this.
Ivan: Here's what I'm hoping. Here's what I'm hoping. Okay. Here's what my hope is. We had lazy Trump.
Ivan: I'm serious.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. No. Cause, cause look, here's, here's the fundamental deal.
Sam: And we've talked about this before, like Trump, aside from a couple issues that
Sam: he's passionate about, like get rid of all the damn brown immigrants and tax
Sam: cuts for all my rich buddies.
Sam: Those are the only two things he actually cares about. Everything else is like
Sam: shit about anything else.
Sam: And like the main reason he ran for president was to get rid of all of his criminal charges.
Ivan: Power and money.
Sam: You know, like, yeah.
Ivan: Power and money and staying out of jail. Yeah, it was like he got now he's got all three.
Sam: Now he's got all three.
Ivan: Really? He's got all three. Look, he's not going to go to jail.
Ivan: Let's be clear about this, at least on anything federal. There's no way he's getting to.
Sam: And even the state stuff is pushed off at least four years, probably more.
Ivan: Right. And even the state stuff is staved off for indefinitely.
Ivan: Who the hell knows how long. OK, he's going to exit the presidency,
Ivan: the richest ex-president ever.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
Ivan: And, you know, he's going to be able to enable all his friends to do whatever
Ivan: the fuck they want. So he's.
Sam: Yeah, I think for the most part, I mean, as much protest as there was about
Sam: like, well, Project 2025 isn't like Trump's thing or whatever.
Sam: He's hiring a bunch of people who are involved in that. And for the most part,
Sam: he's going to be like, I don't give a fuck. Here are the people.
Sam: Yeah, I'm appointing people. They can do what they want. Except. I think.
Ivan: The Doge Commission, their number one suggestion that they want to do,
Ivan: that these fucking morons, which, by the way, Congress will tell Elon and Vivek,
Ivan: go fuck yourself, is to go and cut VA health care.
Ivan: That's their number one suggestion. That they've come up with so far.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: They got $120 billion for veteran affairs health care. And you know what they're
Ivan: going to tell them? Fuck you.
Ivan: You're out of your minds.
Sam: Right. Right.
Ivan: No, the head start. Listen, 12 to cut head start, Sam.
Ivan: I mean, everybody in the public is going to tell him, are you nuts?
Ivan: Cut 8 billion from federal prisons.
Sam: Well, and they've been giving out the message over the last couple of days,
Sam: too, that they're starting to look at Social Security and Medicare.
Sam: And those are on the table, too.
Ivan: Yeah. Yeah. How are those going to go? How well is that going to go with the
Ivan: constituents? Let me tell you something.
Ivan: Republican House members that would vote for cutting Social Security will wind
Ivan: up, they all know, they will wind up losing.
Ivan: I mean, that's like, you want to talk about a third rail of politics?
Sam: The term third rail of politics was coined for Social Security.
Ivan: Yeah, that's the third rail right there, okay? You guys are crazy.
Ivan: You want to go cut Social Security? Yeah.
Sam: People have also mentioned that the whole Doge thing was possibly Trump's,
Sam: like, oh, here, go play with this toy and get out of my face.
Ivan: Right, because he's been Jesus Christ. He couldn't get rid of him.
Sam: But basically saying, like, look, you can go play on this commission.
Sam: You can make some recommendations.
Sam: None of it's going to go anywhere. And nobody's going to care what you say.
Sam: But if you're playing with this, then you're out of my hair for other things.
Ivan: I'm hoping that Trump really spends his presidency mostly golfing. I really want him.
Sam: And this is a very realistic possibility.
Ivan: I propose that we enable that Trump really spends four years golfing.
Ivan: I really do. I really do.
Sam: Well, and of course the question is.
Ivan: That's all I want.
Sam: Somebody else is actually going to be making decisions and then what do they do?
Ivan: Who knows?
Sam: But yeah, I think it's actually very, very light. I mean, look, even in the first term.
Sam: I mean, exactly. It's not only the golf.
Ivan: It was for me golfing. I want him to at Mar-a-Lago and wherever.
Ivan: I don't know. Listen, just, just, I want him to listen, just take a vacation on our dime. I'm fine.
Sam: I mean, even the January 6th stuff. I mean, part of the, I mean,
Sam: part of the criticism was like, he land out and was involved in the whole thing.
Sam: But on the day of people were like, all he's doing is watching TV.
Sam: He's not helping in any way.
Sam: Of course, the reason why he wasn't helping was because he wanted it.
Sam: But, you know, whatever.
Sam: But he was, I mean, we all know what happened in the first term.
Sam: I think it's going to be more of the same.
Sam: It's going to be, I think you are going to have a lot of Donald Trump only engaged
Sam: in a handful of things he cares about.
Sam: And for the most part, saying, as long as they don't embarrass me,
Sam: people on my team can do whatever the fuck they want.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: And and then the question is, like, what do those people do and what damage are they able to do?
Sam: Because they have some pretty, you know, pernicious agendas as well.
Sam: But I think it is a good sign as we're reaching for straws or whatever the term
Sam: is, looking for silver linings, whatever,
Sam: that the Senate at the very least is actually showing some hesitation to some of his nominees. So...
Sam: Okay. Now I had intended not to talk about that, but, and the thing that I actually
Sam: wanted to bring up was not on the Trump side of the equation,
Sam: but on the Biden side of the equation, which is pardons.
Sam: And what we, of course,
Sam: since my last show, like you weren't here, but since the Hunter Biden pardon
Sam: actually hit, like, as I was pushing out the last show.
Sam: So obviously we didn't talk about it on there, but also there's been talk about
Sam: preemptive pardons or some people are calling them protective pardons or whatever.
Sam: And what should Joe Biden do?
Sam: So first of all, Hunter Biden, like the big thing is, you know.
Sam: Joe Biden famously had said over and over and over again that he was not going to pardon Hunter Biden.
Sam: He was not going to commute Hunter Biden's sentence.
Sam: He was not going to do any such thing because the proper, you know,
Sam: the consequences would be what the consequences were.
Sam: And nevertheless, this last week,
Sam: he issued a very broad pardon to Hunter Biden, not just for the things he's
Sam: actually on trial for, but basically for anything he might have done during a 10-year period.
Sam: And so, of course, there are all kinds of people angry and not just like Republicans.
Sam: There are all kinds of Democrats being like, what the hell are you doing,
Sam: Joe Biden? This is the wrong thing to do, et cetera.
Sam: I'll give my quick take, which is from the moment Joe Biden started saying that
Sam: he wasn't going to pardon Hunter Biden, I was like, that's bullshit.
Sam: Of course he is. like on his last day in office, whenever that may be,
Sam: whether it's coming up now or whether he had run for reelection and won or whatever,
Sam: at the end of his presidency, of course, he's going to do it.
Sam: Of course, he's going to do it. There's no way he won't.
Sam: And I think I was proven right. But like, the thing is, there is one scenario,
Sam: I think, where he would not have.
Sam: And that's where Hunter Biden was already cleared.
Sam: Or had a sentence that did not involve jail time and was in no further danger.
Sam: If that had been the case, I think, and I think that's what Joe Biden was hoping would happen.
Sam: And if that had happened, I don't think he would have pardoned him because he
Sam: would have decided he doesn't need one. He's fine.
Sam: But that's not the scenario we're in.
Sam: You know, one Hunter was, of course, a lot. Yeah, go ahead.
Ivan: No, go ahead. Go ahead. No, no, no.
Sam: I was just going to say one Hunter was a few days away from getting his sentence
Sam: in the case that he's already pled guilty in.
Sam: And so one question I had is why not wait till the last day,
Sam: wait till January 19th or something.
Sam: And the reason he was, he was about to be sentenced. The other is that the Trump team has been very,
Sam: very explicit and you can choose not to believe them perhaps,
Sam: but they have been very, very explicit, including Donald Trump himself,
Sam: that what was this election about? This was about retribution.
Sam: This was about going after the people who were against him all this time.
Sam: Now, some of that is against, you know, the Jack Smith and the prosecutor team
Sam: and people in Congress who are involved in the J6 investigation and things like that.
Sam: But, you know, Hunter Biden has been core to this all the time.
Sam: Of course, you would go after Hunter Biden more, you know?
Sam: And, you know, so the rationale is, look, I believe that if I didn't do this, my family,
Sam: Hunter specifically, but quite frankly, probably other people in his family
Sam: too, are going to be harassed for the length of Donald Trump's term.
Sam: And I'm going to prevent that.
Sam: And so, okay, go ahead, Yvonne. What's your thoughts on Hunter?
Sam: And then we can talk about if he should do more.
Ivan: I think the thing is that all the dynamics related to Joe Biden saying he wouldn't
Ivan: pardon Hunter Biden really had a lot to do with the fact that he –,
Ivan: I think that, and well, I, I thought myself that Joe was going to at least either
Ivan: get reelected or, you know, somebody, well, it started off from Joe,
Ivan: I thought was going to get reelected. Okay.
Ivan: You're right. Exactly. And so, you know, if, if Hunter went to jail for stuff
Ivan: that he was convicted, then he might plead a deal. He was going to let the system play out.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Because the Justice Department, under his direction, wasn't going to do this
Ivan: kind of stuff that Trump was trying to do.
Ivan: However, the reality is that with Trump coming in and pledging revenge.
Sam: Well, in terms of politicizing the Justice Department and using it as a political
Sam: tool, let's be absolutely clear. If Joe Biden had wanted to stop the Hunter
Sam: prosecution, he could have done so at any time.
Ivan: At any time?
Sam: At any time. And not just with a pardon. He could have just told DOJ to drop it.
Ivan: Just to drop it. Right.
Sam: You know, and also, you know, and of course, Donald Trump is all about,
Sam: oh, the Jack Smith stuff is all political, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: If anything, the Biden administration held back and only did these things when
Sam: it became absolutely clear that they couldn't get away with not doing it.
Ivan: We are very, very pissed right now that they were not as aggressive as they should have been.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Against Trump. They should have moved on him earlier.
Ivan: These cases should have been already tried and not just convicted by now.
Sam: Well, there are a couple of things. I have heard some really cogent arguments
Sam: about how the there was actually stuff going on during the time period.
Sam: We think they hadn't even started yet. And there were a lot of there was a lot of back and forth.
Ivan: Too long. Yeah.
Sam: But yeah, no, look, I generally agree. I think they were not as aggressive as they could have been.
Ivan: They took way too damn long, period.
Sam: But, and also there are other things they could have gone after.
Sam: And besides just these things, there was the leftovers from Mueller that,
Sam: you know, they allowed the statute of limitations to just run out without doing anything about.
Sam: There are all kinds of conflict of interest and emoluments things that they
Sam: could have gone after. No, there's all kinds of things that they could have dug into and gone after.
Sam: So if anything, if anything, the Biden administration was restrained and, you know,
Sam: only doing things that were so blatantly, obviously bad that they had no choice, you know.
Sam: Right. So anyway, but I interrupted. I apologize.
Ivan: No, my whole thing is that I think it really changed his calculus,
Ivan: obviously, the fact that, you know, Trump won re-election and that he was coming
Ivan: in with a complete, you know,
Ivan: I mean, a stated, you know, intent to prosecute, you know, to harass all these people.
Sam: I mean, honestly, if Harris had won and Hunter had been sentenced to jail,
Sam: I don't know how that would have played out, but I would not have been surprised
Sam: if they had let Hunter go to jail.
Ivan: Well, you know, I really think that it probably would have changed the calculus
Ivan: whether Biden was going to pardon him or not. But I do think that But the bottom line,
Ivan: Is that with Trump coming in and with his stated intent, yes,
Ivan: there is no fucking way that he could not pardon him.
Ivan: And by the way, do the other preemptive pardons as he's considering doing.
Ivan: This is what's making this calculus. It's it's the stated intent of the incoming
Ivan: administration to go and target these people, period.
Ivan: End of discussion. And so, I mean, this is what you have.
Sam: Cash Patel, who is now the nominee for FBI director, who, by the way,
Sam: he has to fire the current FBI director to even appoint a new one because they
Sam: have 10-year terms and he's got three years left.
Sam: The FBI director, he appointed in his last term.
Ivan: By the way, it was appointed by him.
Sam: Right. But the the cash Patel, the new FBI director nominee,
Sam: who is another one, by the way,
Sam: who may or may not make it through the Senate. We'll see how that goes.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: But in his book, he has an appendix that literally has a list of people,
Sam: he says, that should be gone after by the next Republican administration for criminal charges.
Sam: That includes lovely that includes not only hunter biden not only jack smith
Sam: but go all the way back to hillary clinton and bill clinton and basically any
Sam: any prominent democrat joe just.
Ivan: Take that list okay.
Sam: And uh okay there's no preemptive.
Ivan: Pardon list yeah.
Sam: You know oh and of course fauci fauci's on the list. They want Fauci too.
Ivan: Yeah. Put them on there. Yeah.
Sam: You know, and so look, so let's talk about the preemptive pardons now.
Sam: The argument for is everything you've talked about.
Sam: The Trump administration is telegraphed explicitly,
Sam: They're going after these people. Now, to be clear, you can never get them to
Sam: articulate specific charges that make any sense or specific evidence on any of these.
Sam: And to be clear.
Ivan: They can still make their life miserable. Yes.
Sam: And we've said this before, right? Like if somebody is actually guilty,
Sam: like Yvonne, you and I would have no problem if Hunter actually went to jail. Like he did stuff.
Sam: Now, is it absolutely true that he probably wouldn't have been charged at all
Sam: if he wasn't Joe Biden's son? Yes.
Sam: But he did stuff. He broke the law. Like, you know, but like,
Sam: so if any of these people actually committed real crimes, by all means, we should go after them.
Sam: And I think that's one of the things I posted, I think, on the curmudgeon corner Slack,
Sam: that one of the things that has to be on Biden's mind that would never in a
Sam: million years be on the mind of the Trump equivalent is what if I give them
Sam: a blanket pardon and it turns out they actually did something?
Sam: You know, because I don't want to pardon them for something they're actually guilty of, you know.
Ivan: Well, he needs to do some serious vetting before he goes and does it.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Well, and you've got time to do that.
Sam: You've got some time left. You can decide what to do here. But the the the thing
Sam: is, what's with with the Trump folks saying explicitly, we don't know exactly what they did.
Sam: We don't know exactly what crime it is, but we're, we're going to dig in and
Sam: we're going to find them and we're going to go after them and we will blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: Then. Yeah. I mean, a blanket pardon, like, like the kind he did to Hunter,
Sam: which basically said, you know,
Sam: any, any federal crimes you may or may not have been involved in,
Sam: in the last decade off limit done.
Sam: I mean, I could see doing that to a variety of these people where you feel like there's just,
Sam: That vindictive targeting with nothing else. Now, the counter argument is you're
Sam: setting a really bad precedent, you know, because what does this mean Donald Trump can do?
Sam: Donald Trump can, the day he's leaving office, just pardon everybody.
Sam: Pardon everybody in the administration in anticipation.
Ivan: Okay, but, but, but, but, but, oh my God, setting up, listen, I'm sorry.
Ivan: How many people did he not pardon out the door specifically because of that the last time around?
Sam: I mean, he put pardon Maniford.
Ivan: He pardoned Maniford, he pardoned, well, less than he could have.
Sam: But you know what.
Ivan: But that was more, but that, but that was more before, no, because some of those
Ivan: people, like he is with people, it kind of like pissed them off.
Ivan: But he went with the guys that he, you know, anybody that he really wanted pardoned, he pardoned.
Sam: The thing is though, he did, those were all after the fact pardons for things
Sam: that were already charged.
Sam: He didn't do any preemptive ones. Like one of the things people talked about,
Sam: he could have, and same thing, he was mad that they didn't succeed,
Sam: but he could have preemptively pardoned all the January six people.
Sam: You know, he could have preemptively pardoned himself.
Ivan: But, but Sam, Sam, I don't think you remember. I don't even know if he's going
Ivan: to pardon these people now.
Ivan: Do you remember what the line was about these guys? They're losers. They fail.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Right. So that's why he didn't pardon them. They were losers.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: They failed.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: So, you know, that's why he didn't pardon them.
Sam: But I think clearly the point though is like the, the precedent argument,
Sam: the precedent argument makes sense in a non-Trump world.
Sam: Like if you had, if you had normal, you know, pre Trump Republicans coming in.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Sam: If you were about to have President Romney right now or President Jeb Bush or something like that,
Sam: I don't think preemptive pardons
Sam: would even be discussed in the slightest because you would expect those people
Sam: to come in and act responsibly and go with the old tradition of you appoint
Sam: an attorney general who's not going to put their finger in it,
Sam: whatever the right metaphor is here. Yeah.
Sam: Is not going to be a weapon like, and to be clear, all of that came from the
Sam: fact that we used to have attorney generals like that.
Sam: Johnson and Nixon and Kennedy used the Justice Department vindictively against
Sam: their enemies routinely.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: They also use the IRS that way. They generally use the power of the federal
Sam: government for their personal gain and against their political enemies.
Sam: And after Watergate...
Sam: We said, no, that's not okay. And a whole lot of protections were put in place to stop that.
Sam: And that's what Trump is throwing out the window.
Sam: But Joe Biden very much believes in that stuff.
Sam: And if he thought somebody was coming in like these normal Republicans,
Sam: pre-Trump normal Republicans, he wouldn't be thinking about this because he'd
Sam: expect those people to, like you disagree on policy, but you're generally going
Sam: to do the right thing on this kind of stuff.
Sam: And, but there's no, there's zero trust that Trump will do the right thing. I mean, come on.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: And so, I mean, I, I, I said on our commutations corner slack that I think Biden
Sam: should actually be very aggressive with preemptive pardons.
Sam: Screw the precedent, screw people saying like, this is not the right thing to do.
Sam: Stop. I mean, it's too late for a lot of things, but at least on this,
Sam: don't be bringing the knife to the gunfight, you know, like the,
Sam: the other team is going to do whatever they're going to do and they're going
Sam: to make the full use of federal power.
Sam: So while you've got the time to do it, do the same damn thing,
Sam: you know, all of this, like, well, we want to restrain ourselves because we
Sam: hope they will restrain themselves when they have the same power.
Sam: No, fuck that. That that's from a previous universe. Like it's,
Sam: I mean, I wish the Democrats had actually given up on some of that like a long time ago.
Sam: Like, I mean, frankly, like a big part of this election back and forth we've
Sam: been having is like people just, you know,
Sam: blame the party and power for not doing what they want for not doing anything,
Sam: not just not doing what they want, but for being ineffective in general and
Sam: where where they don't understand checks and balances and stuff.
Sam: So like should have ditched the filibuster years ago.
Sam: It's just like God full speed ad getting shit done.
Ivan: Yeah. But fucking cinema and mansion fucking blocked it.
Sam: I saw one, I saw one thing the other
Sam: day saying like all of the blame the Democrats got for not doing X, Y, Z.
Sam: If you'd just gotten those two on board with the full big build back better
Sam: or whatever, which I guess would have included having to do some sort of exemption
Sam: of the filibuster or something. I don't know.
Sam: I, I forget the details of all back then, but, but you could have gotten a lot of shit done.
Sam: That was very visible and people maybe would have remembered,
Sam: but even then, like people don't, people don't remember like the stuff that
Sam: did get done. Nobody gives.
Ivan: Listen, listen, listen, I, I, I really look this environment right now of anti-incumbency
Ivan: because of yes, uh, the general economic situation.
Ivan: And the general economic sensation that
Ivan: people have had and this entire and and
Ivan: it's really fed by a combination of xenophobia
Ivan: trans basic mostly
Ivan: transphobia and then you add this
Ivan: this thing where a lot of people the the thing is that they see oh my god these
Ivan: costs went up yeah but but they don't see that they're making more money they
Ivan: can't they can't see the net well also they can't see the net but.
Sam: Also but also if i get more money it's because i'm awesome not because of something
Sam: the government did if prices are higher it's not my.
Ivan: Fault it's the government's fault but but then but then the expectation that
Ivan: many have that they think that somehow the prices will go back down Yes.
Ivan: Which is ludicrous. Okay. You know, so you get, you get this entire thing where the thing is the,
Ivan: but I will say that the main thing that I've seen with many has a lot to do
Ivan: with this pricing thing where in their head, they're like, oh, whatever.
Ivan: And then, man, this entire anti-immigrant thing that they have fed,
Ivan: I mean, this entire xenophobic anti-immigrant thing that they have fed this
Ivan: monster where it's just, it's just so huge and it's global, right?
Sam: A lot, a lot of the things we're talking about are global. The price spikes
Sam: were global pandemic fueled.
Sam: And if anything, like the U S did better than most countries in terms of that.
Ivan: But that, but that doesn't matter that every other fuck in a country doesn't matter.
Ivan: It doesn't matter. It's the same thing. Like I said, I'm dealing with over here
Ivan: with so many disgruntled people in the condo association. All right.
Sam: Back to this.
Ivan: Because, well, no, but it's nobody, but it's related to the Sam.
Ivan: It's related to the price increase thing and how they see it,
Ivan: okay, and who they blame, all right?
Ivan: Because condo assessments over the last five years have gone up like 30% in our community.
Ivan: And the main reason has been a combination of inflation and mostly driven by
Ivan: insurance, okay? All right?
Ivan: But the reality is that they're up here 30%, but you go across South Florida,
Ivan: they're up 60%. We have one of the lowest rates of increase across the fucking
Ivan: state, okay, considering what's going on.
Ivan: And people still are bitching about the increases. And I'm like, people, you know what?
Ivan: I can't control insurance, okay?
Ivan: We can't control the fucking insurance, okay? Insurance rates have skyrocketed, okay?
Ivan: It's the biggest line item in our budget.
Ivan: And if it goes up that way, we've got no way. I mean, I've shopped it.
Ivan: It doesn't matter. But people still, they don't care, okay?
Ivan: They blame the leadership because you're costing me more.
Ivan: And it doesn't fucking matter why it is. It doesn't matter that you did better
Ivan: relatively to the other ones like Biden did the economy.
Ivan: Now, by the way, I still won the election. It's not clear. But it was a lot closer.
Ivan: Than it's been in the past. Way closer.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: So, yeah, I mean, it's just the reason I can't bring that up is because what
Ivan: I see is the behavior, the misinformation, the anger,
Ivan: the, you know, this whole anti-incumbent thing in general.
Ivan: It just seems to be fucking everywhere about everything, period.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: We want to make a change. Why?
Sam: So back to pardons preemptive preemptive pardons all around be like super aggressive I'm.
Ivan: All for it I'm all for it yeah fuck it I.
Sam: Think like you said I'm all for it it's worth doing some vetting like it's worth doing.
Ivan: Vetting you gotta take this list first you gotta vet it thoroughly make sure
Ivan: that you're not exactly you know doing something that you pardon somebody then
Ivan: you're like holy fuck what the hell but I'm all for it yes do it.
Sam: Don't hesitate just fucking do it and i feel
Sam: like they're they're gnashing their teeth a little bit about this at
Sam: the moment like trying to
Sam: figure out like i think this they are considering it seriously but they have
Sam: not definitely decided to do it i don't think at least the reporting says that
Sam: there's some hesitation they're not sure if they really want to do this the
Sam: precedent the thing the blah blah blah blah blah i think they need to get over
Sam: that and do that one one other concern.
Sam: Was what if people don't want the pardons and aren't going to accept it? Well, ask them first.
Sam: You know, if, if somebody is out there being like, I actually don't want a pardon. Okay.
Sam: Then ask them, don't give them the pardon if they don't want it,
Sam: you know, because there's also this implication and that people have worried
Sam: about that accepting a pardon,
Sam: Is perceived as an admission of guilt.
Sam: Right. And just to be clear, there is an official pardon request process that people can go through.
Sam: That they fill out a form and they send it to some agency and the agency vets
Sam: them and gives a certain number of them to the president to make the final decision.
Sam: I believe part of that process is an admission of guilt.
Sam: In most cases, but it is not actually the actual presidential is unlimited.
Sam: Like the the Ford's pardon of Nixon was a preemptive pardon without Nixon ever
Sam: making an ever admitting guilt.
Ivan: That's right. Yeah.
Sam: Carter made a blanket pardon of Vietnam War draft dodgers. He did not even individually
Sam: identify them, let alone look into the specific cases and who was guilty and
Sam: who was not and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: It was just a blanket pardon for anybody who might have committed that crime
Sam: during the length of the Vietnam War, you know, and, and, and similarly, like, you know,
Sam: there could be pardons here.
Sam: The text of the pardon could explicitly say, we're not making anything on guilt or innocence.
Sam: I think even the Hunter Biden one, I think, had some text about might or might
Sam: not have blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: Having said that, though, there is no automatic admission of guilt as part of accepting a pardon.
Sam: However, you may absolutely guarantee that the political opponents of anybody
Sam: who gets one of these pardons will absolutely hang it over their head as if it was.
Sam: And, and talk about it as if it
Sam: was so, and some of these people are politicians, so they care about that.
Sam: They care about the perception and like, you know, that they're not actually admitting guilt.
Sam: And, you know, so there might be some people who don't want it.
Sam: So don't give it to the people who don't want it.
Sam: But, uh, I don't know. I, I, I want one.
Ivan: Can I get one?
Ivan: I don't know that I've done anything, but I'm like, you know.
Sam: I was going to ask, what have you done, Yvonne?
Ivan: Nothing that I know of, but, you know, I actually think it'd be kind of cool
Ivan: to get a presidential pardon.
Sam: Yeah, a preemptive pardon that says anything you've done in the last 30 years
Sam: that might or might not have been a federal crime.
Ivan: Hell, at least, yeah, I mean, I'm kind of like guaranteed.
Ivan: I'm like, okay, I'm not, you know, I'm not going to be prosecuted,
Ivan: even if I don't expect to be. But, you know, hey.
Sam: There you go.
Ivan: It'd be kind of cool to like frame it. I mean, I'm sure it's got to come in
Ivan: some kind of like cool little thing that you can frame in your office or something.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: I mean, I'm like, I mean, I would be, it would be nice. I mean,
Ivan: I mean, talk about a conversation piece.
Sam: Right. No, I, you know.
Ivan: I have, I have a part.
Sam: And I don't know, I think Joe should also be thinking of what other places can
Sam: he use presidential power with immunity over the next, what,
Sam: we have a month and a week? Something like that?
Ivan: I mean, we have pardoned some fucked up people.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: I mean, like Trump pardoned Michael Milken. I mean, who is the biggest fucking crooks.
Ivan: We talk about whitewashing all his crimes now with his milking foundation to
Ivan: fucking bullshit that he does you know and like nobody talks about the fact
Ivan: that he was one of the biggest fucking fraudsters in wall streets ever in history.
Sam: Yeah i don't know i mean of course the thing with pure executive power other
Sam: than the pardon is that almost everything in that category are things that trump
Sam: could reverse as soon as he got in but you can still make him jump through some
Sam: hoops to do that. I don't know.
Sam: Okay, anything else, Yvonne, or should we close this sucker up?
Sam: You've gone longer than you thought you were going to be able to.
Ivan: My wife apparently is knocked out. I mean, I guess the medication really has her knocked out.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: I thought she was going to really, I was worried that she was about to come
Ivan: to whatever and I'd have to, you know, do stuff.
Ivan: But apparently, I mean, she is out, out, out, out. So.
Sam: Well, good, I guess. You know, so.
Ivan: Well, yeah, she's not feeling pain.
Sam: How long is it supposed to take to heal from the surgery? Like how long is she going to be?
Ivan: Months.
Sam: Months.
Ivan: Months. This is not quick.
Sam: Beautiful. Yeah, no, this is not quick.
Sam: I don't know if I mentioned on the show as well, like since we're talking family
Sam: injuries, my wife's mother,
Sam: my mother-in-law in, I guess it was October, got hit by a car and like broken
Sam: pelvis, broken ankle, a head injury as well.
Sam: So my wife's been in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania
Sam: like so she was in the hospital a couple weeks then she
Sam: was in like a a rehab a couple weeks and then
Sam: they finally sent her home and my wife is there
Sam: with her at home because they they sent her home before she was able to actually
Sam: be self-sufficient so my wife has been with her ever since and I think the plan
Sam: is next week my wife's coming back and my daughter's flying out there to take
Sam: over but it's it's the same thing like this is months and months and months long recovery. Right.
Sam: And so she is doing a lot better than she was right after the accident,
Sam: but she's still like, she, she lived alone in a multi-story home. She can't do stairs yet.
Sam: You know, she can, she's now starting to be able to go around on the first floor
Sam: without like a walker or wheelchair sometimes, but it's very tiring,
Sam: very exhausting and she can't do stairs yet.
Sam: And, you know, so these, ah, and, and she's a bit older than your wife.
Sam: So healing also takes longer, you know, you know, so I don't know.
Sam: She, she's doing better too.
Sam: But yeah, these kinds of things. A few years ago, my father was also hit by
Sam: a car. Somebody ran over his foot.
Sam: That also took many many months to get back to where you were before you know
Sam: i mean i running over your foot is better than getting hit square on you know
Sam: but yes much better but still like it months to recover months to recover here's one thing i.
Ivan: We have a disney trip planned at the end of this month i i am gonna have to
Ivan: probably get her one of those little electric scooter things.
Sam: Yeah okay.
Ivan: At least they got those. I get her on one of those.
Sam: You need the electric one or just the one, the knee scooter thing that you push around?
Ivan: No, no, no. She's got the knee scooter, but for Disney, I'm going to get her the electric one.
Sam: Okay. The place is too big.
Ivan: I do have her. I do. I did get her a knee scooter. Yeah.
Sam: Get her one of those things that where the kind you sit in and like just scooter
Sam: mobility scooters. Yeah. Yeah.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Okay. Yeah. No, I can see that.
Ivan: Imanu will be happy because he can honk the horn.
Sam: Yeah. Well, so anyway, yeah. Long, long recoveries from these kinds of injuries,
Sam: but hope it goes as smoothly as it can, Yvonne.
Sam: And yeah. And hope, hope nobody else gets injured in the next couple months.
Ivan: You know, look, I'm hoping that I don't have a recurrence of my problem.
Ivan: And I wind up in the hospital because that would be a disaster.
Ivan: I don't know what the fuck we're doing. if we're both ill.
Sam: Right right now yeah that becomes
Sam: an issue so hopefully it does yes okay let's
Sam: close this sucker up hey everybody go to curmudgeons-corner.com you can find
Sam: our what my son is passing me a dryer hedgehog that that he has he has made
Sam: 3d printed versions of various sizes of the hedgehog. Okay.
Sam: Okay, stop. No, no, no, no. Come on, I'm wrapping up. Okay, I'm going to mark this at it.
Sam: Okay.
Sam: Okay. Everybody go to curmudgeons-corner.com. You can find our archives,
Sam: all of our old shows. You can find all the ways to contact us.
Sam: You can find transcripts for some of the old shows as well. Like the last,
Sam: it's been like two years now we've been doing transcripts. It's been a while. You can find links.
Ivan: Been a while.
Sam: Yeah. You can find links to our YouTube. I haven't added links to our TikTok
Sam: yet. We didn't talk about TikTok may be banned again.
Sam: Like, you know, they lost in court. we'll see how that goes maybe talk maybe
Sam: maybe i i still think chances are probably not but we'll see,
Sam: and then yeah you can go to our patreon and give us money of course at various
Sam: levels we will send you a we'll mention you on the show we'll send you a postcard
Sam: we'll send you a mug all of that kind of thing and at two dollars a month or
Sam: more or if you ask nicely we will invite you to our Curmudgeons Corner Slack,
Sam: where Yvonne and I are talking and chatting and sharing links throughout the
Sam: week, along with a variety of our listeners.
Sam: So Yvonne, do you have a highlight from the Curmudgeons Corner Slack that will
Sam: make people so excited they want to get on there and log in all the time and
Sam: see what we're talking about? Because it's so compelling.
Ivan: Yes. Residents of Northern California neighborhood had a good laugh after Thursday's
Ivan: powerful earthquake struck the region.
Ivan: A robotic vacuum cleaner that
Ivan: apparently got disconnected for invasion was found roaming the streets.
Ivan: So there was like a quake and somehow Aruba somehow wound up escaping this house
Ivan: and it was just roaming aimlessly down the street.
Sam: As Roombas do.
Ivan: Yeah. Well, also, also, I believe that we shared that there was this, here it is,
Ivan: Hawk to a Girl responds as people call for her to be jailed with fans losing
Ivan: life savings after buying her cryptocurrency.
Ivan: The viral cessation has been accused of pulling the rug under the investors.
Ivan: Her crypto coin plummeted by $430 million in just 20 minutes.
Sam: And just to be clear, percentage terms, that was like a 90% drop or something like that.
Ivan: Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like,
Ivan: I do question when I saw this guy, one guy that said, I put my life savings
Ivan: in there and I'm suspecting that he had like maybe $20 as his life savings or maybe 40, maybe 40.
Sam: Look, I've said on the show before, I have gambled with some cryptocurrency.
Sam: I've put in a little bit of excess cash into that, that I could afford to lose.
Ivan: Gambled in stocks and gotten killed look i i
Ivan: you know i had some penny stocks at one time i lost on
Ivan: one stock i mean my god i lost like sixty thousand dollars
Ivan: on a stock but i had a lot more in
Ivan: my portfolio it wasn't like you know i was like maybe at that point
Ivan: i don't know this was like 20 years ago i was like it wasn't it was it was like
Ivan: 10 percent of my portfolio at the time something like that whatever so it wasn't
Ivan: like you know i i could withstand a loss of 10 percent of my portfolio okay
Ivan: all right i didn't put all my money into a fucking penny stock that's.
Sam: Important i mean and look this is the point i was getting at like sure play
Sam: around gamble with these things but
Sam: recognize that's what you're doing and recognize it could go to zero and.
Ivan: Right and if you're not okay with that then.
Sam: You shouldn't be doing it at all like you know especially like hawk to a girl
Sam: comes out with a new crypto coin.
Ivan: And you put your life savings in it i mean dude what are you doing i mean at
Ivan: least if you're talking about hawk to a girl as your financial advisor i.
Sam: Mean at least if you're talking about bitcoin or ethereum or one of the really
Sam: big ones you have some kind of argument of something.
Ivan: Even there don't put your entire life savings.
Sam: Don't put your entire life savings in anything.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know...
Sam: Yeah. I mean, seriously, like I, I, I have very little sympathy for the people
Sam: who are like, I lost it all.
Sam: Like, okay. If you want to play around with the Hawk to a girl currency or something
Sam: and put a little bit in that you can afford to lose, it's the same. Yeah. then fine.
Sam: But yeah, anybody saying that they've lost a significant amount that affects
Sam: their lives. I'm sorry. You're just dumb.
Ivan: You're just dumb. A hundred percent. A hundred percent.
Sam: Okay. Are we done?
Ivan: All right. We're done.
Sam: Okay. Thanks everybody for joining us for another curmudgeons corner.
Sam: Have a great week. Stay safe. Oh, I mentioned last week that I was going to
Sam: set up the, the Google sheet for our, our big prediction show at the end of
Sam: the year, which is coming up soon. I haven't done it yet.
Sam: I promise by next week, I will share a link to a Google sheet where people can
Sam: add suggestions for things they want us to predict, but I haven't done it yet. I'm lame. Sorry.
Sam: I'm just doing other stuff with that. Have a great week. Stay safe.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: Blah, blah, blah. Have a good week. Great week. Blah, blah, blah. Goodbye.
Ivan: Blah, blah, blah. More blah, blah.
Sam: And goodbye. Say goodbye.
Ivan: Bye. Bye, bye, bye. Blah, blah. Thank you.
Sam: Thank you. Okay, that's it. Later, Yvonne.
Ivan: All right, let's stop this thing.